Sunday, 6 May 2018

The Innocent review [Nicholas Briggs]

The Doctor is dead, killed by the Time Destructor that wiped out the largest Dalek time fleet ever assembled. Except, of course he's not. He's alive and well (enough) and living on Keska.

When and where: The planet Keska. The War Doctor is old and tired, so this is later in his life. The whole War Doctor series is set some time between The Night of the Doctor and The Day of the Doctor. For Ollistra, this is after The Eighth Doctor: The Time War.

The Warrior's Case:
  • A Good Quotation:
    • "I KNOW THE DALEKS! I know them!"
  • We're introduced to Cardinal Ollistra of the High Council, who's not given much to do but makes an impression regardless. She's a Time Lady who hates the Daleks, but there's more to it than that. She seems to think that she has a special relationship with the Daleks, believing that she knows and understands them better than most and utterly despises them. It's the same feeling that the Daleks feel for all other life-forms. To have a Time Lady hate the Daleks so personally makes Cass's question of who can tell the difference between the two races anymore that much more poignant. Ollistra would be a good Dalek.
  • The Time Destructor, which so tragically killed Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Master Plan, is a terrifying weapon and it was a great idea to bring it back for the Daleks to use in the Time War. I always like it when Big Finish use little bits of continuity in this way.
  • Rejoice isn't a particularly memorable character but that name... It's a beautiful one.
The Cardinal's Case:

  • The cold open introduces Ollistra and tells us about the destruction of the Dalek time fleet, but it seems strange for the teaser for the first audio of the first War Doctor box set to be that the Doctor is dead. Firstly, he obviously isn't. Secondly, we haven't had the opportunity to get to properly relate to or learn about the War Doctor aside from his last day before regeneration in The Day of the Doctor. It's a shocking moment for Ollistra, but not for the listener who hasn't yet heard a word from the character. If Ravenous 1 were to begin with this, it would work. We know the Eighth Doctor and we'd wonder what happened to him, what happened to Liv and if she's alive, and how did the Doctor get out of it. Here, it isn't a successful opener.
  • This story is pretty much traditional Who with a little more character work with the Doctor. To use a story so rote and quiet to kick off the War Doctor series wasn't the best move. This is the Doctor who wasn't the Doctor, but he acts just as the First, Sixth or Twelfth Doctors do. He's not a blood-soaked warrior like we were promised. Surely we should have seen some of that first so that his opportunity to rest on Keska would be more interesting and more tempting to him.
  • Rejoice having something of an attachment to the Doctor after nursing him for months makes sense, but it's taken a little too far. Perhaps it's her Keskan optimism but she's far too kind to and forgiving of the Doctor, most notably after the boat debacle.
  • I never like it when they use the same photo of a character twice on one cover.
This Reminds Me...:
  • Rejoice looks after the Doctor just like Rose did in The Christmas Invasion.
  • I misheard "Arverton" as "Arbitan" (of The Keys of Marinus) and was wondering if Big Finish were really going to bring such an obscure character back for the Time War.
  • Veklin is voiced by Beth Chalmers, AKA Raine Creevy, who first appeared in Crime of the Century.
The Inquisitor's Judgement: The Doctor lands on a planet, saves the day and leaves with a companion. Granted, the companion is sent home by Ollistra but otherwise this is a very traditional story that fails to be the explosive start to the War Doctor series that it needed to distinguish itself. John Hurt and Jacqueline Pearce are, as expected, amazing but the plot is thin and the characters not given the most interesting of material whilst wannabe-companion Rejoice - such a lovely name - fails to make an impression, just being kind of nice. This is a bad story, and that earns it a D.


The Innocent  |  The Thousand Worlds

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